To car insurance companies, it makes more business sense to pay out a minimal settlement amount rather than work with you to resolve your claim. Insurance adjusters may try to coax car wreck victims into settling their claims quickly with low-ball offers or quick checks. Having your claim open costs the insurance company time and money. Bottom line: Don’t fall for a quick check from your insurance company. It may cost you later.
Unfortunately, what most car wreck victims don’t understand is this:
When car wreck victims sign a quick check, they have entered a binding contract representing themselves. They have settled both their bodily injury and property damage claim for one lump sum.
Often, car wreck victims will start seeing unresolved issues, like unpaid medical bills. They may begin to receive collection notices for past medical bills for which they are responsible. Their health insurance company may refuse to pay due to injuries sustained in a car wreck. Their medical treatment may be more intensive than initially thought.
When car wreck victims represent themselves, they may find themselves in a trap they didn’t know existed with car insurance companies. Even a minor accident with minor injuries can result in a financial downfall when uninformed decisions are made. Hiring a personal injury lawyer like Henry Queener will ensure that car wreck victims get the best outcome. Let our highly experienced legal team work for you while you focus on recovering.
Contact Queener Law today for a free consultation.
Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney After a Car Wreck
How Much Does It Cost?
Hiring a personal injury attorney after a car wreck should be the first thing you do. With Queener Law, you’ve got a great team who’s going to work for your best interest against the insurance company. When we take your case, we handle everything. We gather evidence and hire experts to prove your case. When finish your medical treatment, we gather medical records and bills to submit to the insurance company.
Don’t try to figure out the rules of the crazy insurance game by yourself when you can have a team of professionals that know how these insurance companies work.
All you need to do is focus on your medical care so that you can get back to where you were before the car wreck happened. Hiring Queener Law after a car wreck allows you to not worry about dealing with lost future earning capacity or the reduced ability to earn a living for yourself and your family. Remember, the insurance adjuster only wants to close your claim as quickly and cheaply as possible. This could be very detrimental to your physical, mental and financial health.
Leave it to Queener Law to play the car wreck game and take care of the insurance companies for you.
We work on a contingency basis, meaning that we handle all the upfront costs and only get paid when you receive a settlement. This depends on the amount of the settlement and case expenses. Contact us today for a free case evaluation and with any question.
Car wrecks in snow and ice happen in the mountains, on highways, and even on your way to work.
Drivers have important duties when driving in snow and ice. All drivers have a duty to drive at a safe speed for the conditions, even if that means going well below the posted speed limit. Drivers also have a duty to maintain control of their vehicle, even if they hit an icy patch. And equally importantly, drivers must follow at a safe enough distance to stop without hitting the car in front of them, regardless of the road conditions.
When people get in car wrecks in snow and ice, the at-fault party almost always blames the weather.
They say it’s the ice’s fault they crashed into you and caused you injury. That’s not how the law sees it. When a driver hits you during snow and icy conditions, they are still responsible for the injuries and damage they cause.
At Queener Law, we regularly represent people who have been injured in car wrecks in snow and ice.
The injuries from these types of wrecks can be severe and long-lasting. We will ensure that the insurance company for the responsible party takes accountability. The team at Queener Law will get you compensated for the harms and losses you suffered because another driver failed in their duties.
After nearly four years of fighting, Queener Law won a jury verdict in Arapahoe County, Colorado, against Starbucks.
For years, Starbucks Coffee Company knew that its roof and downspout leaked onto the sidewalk. In the colder months, the water on the sidewalk froze solid, covering the entire corner of the pavement. Customers walked across that pavement to get to their cars after spending money on coffee and tea at Starbucks. Employees complained. Customers fell and were injured. Yet Starbucks did nothing to fix it.
Sometimes Starbucks threw ice melt on the sidewalk. Sometimes they shoveled it. Most of the time, they did nothing.
In 2019, our client stopped at Starbucks to get tea on his way to a business meeting. When he was walking back to his car, he came around the blind corner and stepped on the sheet of ice. His feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back and outstretched arm. He tore his shoulder and suffered multiple, severe injuries to his spine. Our client went to the emergency room and a series of specialists. He had shoulder surgery, spinal procedures, and years of rehabilitation.
What did Starbucks do? Nothing. They did not make an incident report. They did not offer to pay his medical bills.
Starbucks offered him a $50 gift card and their well wishes.
It took our client nearly $200,000 in medical debt to get his shoulder fixed and his spine back to the point that he could still work. His spinal injuries are permanent and he will never be the same. But all Starbucks offered him was that $50 gift card.
Queener Law’s history shows our team wins trials.
We took the case on his behalf and pushed Starbucks to take accountability.
During the litigation, Starbucks’ representatives testified that Starbucks maintains “a culture of safety,” but admitted that nothing was done on the day our client fell to treat the ice, warn customers, or make it safe. Nothing. Their team of attorneys created false scenarios about our client, claiming he was faking his injuries, exaggerating his losses, and maybe didn’t even fall in the first place. The Starbucks team tried any and every tactic they could to avoid taking responsibility.
At trial, our team showed video from the scene of the fall. We called our client’s doctors in to testify that not only are his injuries real, they are permanent. We had an economist testify about the financial hardships Starbucks’ negligence caused him. The proof was clear.
The Arapahoe County jury returned a verdict quickly and clearly.
They found that Starbucks was negligent and responsible for our client’s injuries. Their six-figure verdict put our client back on the road to recovery.
We are beyond grateful to our client for trusting us with his case and to the jury for bringing justice.
When Queener Law litigates cases, our team wins trials. We see justice done or we don’t quit pushing.
Over the years, Queener Law has been trusted to work with brain injury survivors across the country. The Queener Law family has our own personal experience with brain injuries, and we have felt our own great losses and fought through our own great survivals. We understand what it means to have your life forever changed in an instant by a head injury. We also know what it means to feel like no one understands. For brain injury survivors who are suffering because of the negligence caused by someone else there are two major phases of understanding beyond the hurdle that all head trauma survivors face – relearning your life with your family and friends. For victims of negligence, you also have to compete with the medical treatment phase and the litigation phase.
Phase 1: Medical Treatment Phase
You know your body better than anyone. Even doctors. Doctors may have a list of letters after their names, and they may be at the top of their fields. But unless they are specifically trained and experienced in working with brain trauma, no matter how hard they try, they just won’t get it. They can run every test in the world, prescribe every anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication, send you to therapist after therapist, or tell you to get more rest. And all of those things may take the edge off. But does that make you feel like you again? You need a specialist. You need someone who will listen. And someone who will understand. You need help finding the right medical team that can hear what you describe and allow it to set off light bulbs in their minds from their experience. You need the team that is equipped with the latest technologies, therapies, and treatments for the specific trauma you have – a team who will treat the injury, not the symptoms.
Specialists in traumatic brain injuries should also know that you are not the only person they should hear from. Sometimes you don’t even know how to articulate what’s going on or how you have changed since your injury. True brain injury specialists know that they must also reach out to your family, your friends, your coworkers, even your favorite coffee barista or mail carrier to get a full and complete picture of the uniqueness of your life. Only then can they craft the proper treatment plan for you.
Phase Two: Litigation
The second, and often most trying phase, negligence victims face is the litigation phase. Think about how difficult it is to get through to your family, friends, and physicians about your injuries. Now try to express how you feel to a suit hired by the person who is trying not to be held accountable. Or to a box full of strangers you are asking to award you money for all you have gone through and the fight you have ahead of you. It cannot be understated the importance of having a team behind you who has learned through experience how to articulate to the opposition the concrete changes you have experienced, to paint a clear picture of what your life used to look like and hang it next to one of what it looks like now.
Queener Law has decades of experience working with families as they navigate this phase. We have helped them find the right medical teams and helped them learn how to express themselves to their community in a way that sets them up for the compensation they require to face their future. We have also faced these same phases in our own lives. There is no part of this process that we have not experienced on a personal level ourselves. What makes us uniquely capable of working with brain injury survivors is that we live amongst them every day. Some of us grew up with them, some of us are growing and learning with them now. We will not ask you do to anything alone, and we will not recommend to you anything we have not experienced ourselves. You are a negligence victim and a brain injury survivor. Let us help you become a survivor of both.
Our goals for 2020 include helping you get to know us a little better. To aid in that venture, we are starting a video series to share a bit more about who we are and help you learn more about who you are working with. Our first video features Managing Partner Jennifer K. O’Connell. Jennifer grew up in Tennessee. Her father was a forester and her mother was a public school special education teacher. She and her sister regularly rode out to the woods with their dad or adventuring among the trees behind their family home, their two Springer Spaniels in tow. The whole family took regular camping trips to state and national parks across the country. If you could not see it in a tent, the O’Connell’s were not interested. They saw snow at the Grand Canyon in June and counted buffalo sightings at Yellowstone in February. More than one of those trips was here to the Rocky Mountains. In fact, Jennifer’s parents began visiting the mountains shortly after they were married. Colorado holds a special place in her family. Jennifer also loves her home state of Tennessee. While the mountains of Appalachia have a bit more oxygen at the top, hiking was still a big part of Tennessee life for her and her family. While the summit of Mount Le Conte is only 6,593 feet, there is a 2,763 foot climb to the top and there is often quite a bit of ice at the top.
Click here to learn more about Jennifer and keep an eye out for the next episode to learn more about her team! Hope you enjoy getting to know us!
